A Talk With Claudia Christian About TSM, And A Cure For Alcoholism

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life. On the Rehab Podcast, my guest is Claudia Christian, a movie, television star, author, singer, model, probably best known for her lead role as commander of Babylon 5. And many, many other films and television shows and voice work. And you were the voice of Jaguar. On IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, you have 145 credits as actress, which is incredible. You are also the founder of the C3 Foundation, c3foundation.org, which is a foundation that promotes the Sinclair Method, which we’re definitely going to be talking about. And you are the producer of an incredible documentary film, One Little Pill, which is a documentary about the Sinclair Method. So welcome to the podcast.

Claudia Christian [01:30] Thank you so much, Mark. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:33] So as far as the Sinclair Method and the use of naltrexone, I was speaking to an older doctor who I brought it up and he said, you know, it’s really unusual. All the doctors are being told to use naltrexone for alcoholism 30 years ago. These days, nobody knows about it’s almost like it’s been forgotten. You can almost call it the forgotten pill. I’ve had people call me from, you know, this guy called me from Naples, which is on the other coast of Florida. I’m in Fort Lauderdale. And he said it would be a three hour drive to come visit me in my office, but he can’t find a single doctor in his area who’s willing to prescribe naltrexone, which doesn’t make any sense because it’s probably safer than a lot of over-the-counter medications. It probably should be over-the-counter itself.

Claudia Christian [02:16] Absolutely. Well, first of all, let me address a couple of things there. That fellow in Naples could easily go on to www.c3foundation.org and find plenty of providers in Florida, including telemedicine, where he could immediately get a prescription probably the same day. Furthermore, as far as it being the forgotten pill, absolutely, it was approved in 1994. But unfortunately, doctors were told to prescribe it with abstinence. And also, usually, they told the person to take it in the morning. So what you’re dealing with there is an individual who is struggling with cravings that usually kick in around cocktail hour after work. It’s a psychological aspect of compulsive behavior that you have a pattern, a habit. And henceforth, people really aren’t craving alcohol in the morning unless they are physically, biologically at that point, dependent on the alcohol. So let’s say you have your average drinker who’s drinking too much. And around four or five o’clock, they start to really crave. Well, if you’re taking it in the morning and trying to remain abstinent, not only will the medication no longer be at a peak plasma level in your bloodstream, but it really might wear off for some individuals who have a high metabolism. I mean, the half-life is 10 to 12 hours, but as we know, this can change amongst people. So you take it at seven o’clock in the morning and what are you blocking? You’re blocking the endorphins you create in life from working out, making love, playing with your children, your pets, doing something you enjoy. So this is really counterintuitive to the whole process of getting somebody away from alcohol misuse. It was the wrong way to prescribe it. And even though the studies have shown that, to show that targeted use of naltrexone is far more effective than taking it in the morning and trying to remain abstinent, regardless of that, doctors are still prescribing it in that antiquated manner. So I think it’s a matter of a lot of doctors don’t have a lot of education in addiction. It’s a very minimum amount of hours required to graduate, you know, I think it’s eight hours or something, you would know that better than me. And I don’t think that for continuing education credits, it’s something that’s terribly appealing for, let’s say, a general practitioner. You know, I don’t think they’re going to take the latest continuing education course on addiction. So anyway, all of that adds up to people relying on extremely antiquated manners of treating alcohol use disorder. For example, telling them to go to meeting or just quit. Clearly, this doesn’t work because the rate of alcohol deaths are climbing substantially every year. And now we have a subset of individuals that are incredibly young developing alcohol use disorder. And for women in the past decade, 85% more cases of alcohol use disorder amongst women. It’s an epidemic. As much as the opioid epidemic, alcohol misuse is an epidemic. And it’s something that is legal and it’s everywhere. And it’s also legal to target women and to target young people to drink. And it’s everywhere. So between the marketing and the accessibility, we have a real problem on our hands, Mark.

Dr. Mark Leeds [05:18] This country has tried prohibition and they say it didn’t work and they made alcohol legal. And do you think it might be time to try that again?

Claudia Christian [05:28] I don’t think so, because I’ve seen massive amounts of misuse in places where alcohol is not available. I’ve known people serving abroad in the Middle East, and they would drink gasoline. Because if you’re physically dependent or hairspray, out of desperation, you will do anything, and it might kill you. There are people that huff Aqua Net because they just need to get the alcohol. They drink perfume. I mean, you know, I myself at my very worst drank vanilla extract. I mean, when you’re physically addicted and you’re taken over by that compulsive behavior, it is all encompassing and you will do anything to relieve the withdrawal from alcohol. So making it illegal, I don’t think that’s the answer because you’ll have prohibition bars popping up everywhere. You’ll have speakeasies and you’ll have people making more money off of it by selling it at a much higher price. And you’ll have people producing grain alcohol at home, which is far more destructive to your system, your liver, your esophagus, everything. We know that. You’ll have far more cases of cancer. People drinking moonshine, you know, died a lot sooner. I think what it is it’s education. It’s education of telling doctors that it is not responsible. It is malpractice to say to somebody, you should go to an AA meeting and leave it at that. Because that is not fair to the individual. First of all, that’s peer support. It is not scientifically based. It is not a treatment. It is peer support. You wouldn’t tell somebody with leukemia to go to a meeting for leukemia patients. It’s just complete hogwash. So I think doctors need to be educated as far as, and by the way, I’m not denigrating or negating that AA helps certain individuals. I’m past all that. I’m saying that we need to move into the modern day and we need to start treating this as the disease as it is. And you don’t treat a disease with talk therapy. You treat it with medication. And so you have to have a comprehensive program for the individual, because let’s face it, everybody drinks for different reasons. Everybody is made up of different memories and trauma. And we have to treat it comprehensively with medication and with cognitive behavioral therapy or some sort of support.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:32] Now, as far as doctors who do treat addiction, a lot of doctors go into the field of addiction treatment because they’ve had issues with addiction or alcoholism themselves. And a lot of them do get credentialed through organizations such as the American Society of Addiction Medicine or ASAM. Now, if you go to ASAM’s website, they’re very much in favor of the 12-step process. I mean, there’s a page where they talk about that it’s evidence-based medicine, not the 12-step program itself, but the 12-step program facilitation, getting people into AA. So the organization that doctors are going to get credentialed on addiction treatment, the doctors that really want to learn everything about addiction and how to properly treat it, they’re being taught that the 12 steps are the way to go, which is a big problem.

Claudia Christian [08:17] Yeah, I know. It’s a huge problem. And there is nothing evidence-based about it. I mean, first of all, the anonymity prohibits you from actually knowing how many people are successful at it. But common understanding or belief is that it has upwards of a 97% relapse rate, that only maybe 2% to 5% of the people remain sober for a year with the 12-step program. Not only that, I think that especially for women in the program, if you’re telling somebody that they’re a failure off the start, to be saddled with an addiction is one thing, but then to be told that you’re a failure over and over again. I mean, they take your chips away if you have a beer after 10 years. I mean, it’s just everything is based on punishment in that regard. And I do believe that if you have a like-minded group of individuals that aren’t drinking and your goal is sobriety, absolutely. Go to meetings, make new friends that don’t drink. I think that’s wonderful. That’s camaraderie in the right vein. But if you want to reduce your drinking, or if you want to get rid of your cravings, going to a meeting and talking about it is not going to help, I don’t think. I don’t think it helps with your cravings at all. And there are medications for that. And I think that we need to offer people that because people feel like a failure. If they go to AA and it doesn’t work for them, if they don’t believe in God, or if they don’t like it, or if they get hit on by some guy, a convict with a criminal record that is court mandated to attend an AA meeting, which by the way, I’ve been to lots of AA meetings and there’s dodgy characters in a lot of them that I wouldn’t want my daughter hanging out with if she had a drinking problem. You know, I wouldn’t want them to be with court mandated pedophiles in a meeting. And that’s what happens in AA meetings. You know, that’s the reality of it. So anyway, onto the subject of TSM, what I advocate and what I use for my own drinking issue back in 2009. I found a flyer for something called Vivitrol and it was a shot that was very expensive but I looked into it and I found out that the active ingredient was naltrexone which is an opiate blocker and as I did a little bit of research I stumbled upon this book by Dr. Roy Eskapa. The title was The Cure for Alcoholism and I thought well this is you know one more snake oil treatment but I read the book and I come from a family of doctors and researchers. So I immediately clung on to Hope with this method of using naltrexone in a targeted manner. And I ordered it online because at that point, there was no C3 foundation. There was no documentary, One Little Pill. There was no book, Babylon Confidential. There was nothing on the Sinclair method other than Dr. Eskapa’s book. So I ordered it and it profoundly changed my relationship to alcohol. And in the decade that I was on TSM. I had my ups and downs. I certainly, when I was complying 100%, it was magical. I had years and years of being able to be a normal drinker, being able to travel and have a glass of wine or being able to sit around with friends and have a drink or two and stop and have no cravings and not spiral into a binge. So for me, it was lifesaving. I then started to coach people and I opened up my nonprofit foundation to spread the word of it because I thought it was just absurd that people don’t have any options, that their option is they’re just told to go to a meeting and quit drinking. And I’ve dealt with a lot of young people. And it’s really difficult to tell a 25-year-old not to drink for the next 75 years. It’s pervasive in this culture. So I think having that option, a lot of people on the Sinclair Method go sober. About 40-something percent go abstinent. They just lose interest in it took me a long time to lose interest. I’ve been abstinent for the past year. But before that, I’d drink and then not drink for six months and then sort of have a little bit. But I think that for me, I just got to the point where I was done with it. But that took me a long time. So my behavior was obviously more entrenched with trauma and emotional dependence on using alcohol in an unhealthy manner. And I’m completely transparent about that. Other people such as Katie Cronin, who runs Embody Daily, she did it. And I think she was done with alcohol within a year on the Sinclair Method, and she’s been sober ever since. So there are individuals, and Gary Bell, who’s in my documentary, I think he did it for a few months, and he’s been sober for six years. So there are people who respond differently to it, but all in all, and the reason why I advocate for it, and the reason why I am so interested in medications for alcohol use disorders, because I’ve seen the results, and they are outstanding. If the person is motivated and if the person really wants to gain control of their drinking or stop drinking, these medications are lifesaving, period.

Dr. Mark Leeds [12:55] Now, what do you think about psychotherapy, seeing a psychologist to help you with that side of things, developing tools or getting to the root of the problem of why you started drinking in the first place? Is that important also?

Claudia Christian [13:08] Yes, and I used to be strictly biological. I was very adamant about the majority of people are biological drinkers. And I regret that, but that was my experience at the time. And I think I was belittling childhood trauma. And I think now that I’ve done a hell of a lot more research over the past decade, I have a much clearer understanding about how much psychosocial support helps an individual throughout this process. I would definitely say that you need to find the right support. I myself had a psychiatrist with absolutely no addiction background that actually triggered me to drink every time I finished a session with her. She was not helpful to me at all, and in any way didn’t teach me any tools to navigate mindful drinking or mindful compliance. And I wish I would have found somebody, and I wish I would have searched further. I did enjoy moderation management meetings. I thought those were great. I never really found an AA meeting that I felt comfortable in because the redundancy and the repetitiveness of the meetings, the readings of the same thing over and over and over again. The references to alcoholism as an allergy, the sort of antiquated wordage didn’t sit well with me. So I never found a meeting that I was quite comfortable in. But I definitely have found online support. We have Sinclair Method meetings. I used to do a monthly Sunday meeting that was just wonderful. It was two hours plus of everyone just talking about their experiences. I’m trying to launch a site, TSM Buddies, which would match people together for compliance issues or for alcohol-free days or for support, much like a sponsor. But once again, that takes financing. And we at C3 Foundation are very grassroots. So that website is on hold for now until we get some money. And in general, yes, I absolutely think that psychosocial support is incredibly important. I think if you have peer support or a good therapist or a good psychiatrist with addiction knowledge and certainly somebody who can build you that toolbox so that you can learn to navigate life’s emotional aspects without relying on a substance. And I think that’s one of the biggest thing is the triggers, the mindfulness. When you’re triggered emotionally to be able to sit down and work your way through what if I did drink right now or what if I did use and really sit down and think about what that would do, the repercussions in your life, how you would feel, how you would feel the next day. And once you let that feeling pass, I truly believe with mindfulness and with really an intense connection to your own feelings and to sit with yourself quietly, it really does help a lot. And if you do have someone to call, it’s even better. I mean, it’s wonderful to have a support team. I’m always concerned about people who don’t especially people who want to go on the sinclair method a lot of their partners or loved ones think it’s an excuse to drink because they don’t do the research They don’t look into the science behind it And so they just look at it like oh you’re gonna pop a pill and get addicted to that pill which is absolutely absurd because naltrexone as you know There’s no possibility of becoming addicted to it’s not an enjoyable drug You cannot misuse it. There’s never been an overdose of naltrexone people don’t get addicted to naltrexone. It is a opiate blocker. So there is a lot of misinformation out there and confusion. And I think that the most important thing for a loved one of someone who’s suffering from alcoholism is to simply allow them to find the options and do the research yourself. If your husband or wife is suffering and they believe they come home and they say, you know, I really want to get this shot or this implant, or I want to take this pill, or I want to take this medication to help with my cravings, for gosh sake, do the research and support them and try to be loving and come from a place of understanding that this is not a choice. Addiction is not a choice. I didn’t wake up someday and decide when I was a kid that I wanted to have OCD and become an anorexic and then become an alcoholic. I mean, these are the last things that I wanted to happen to me in this lifetime, but they happened. My brain is wired this way between genetics and between learned behavior. This is what happened. And I thank God every day that science is finally catching up to treatment.

Dr. Mark Leeds [17:17] As far as finding a good psychologist, and I know that’s an issue because I practice MAT or medication-assisted treatment in my medical practice, and this is really great to learn so much more about how this works, pharmacological extinction and the use of naltrexone taking it an hour before a drink and not taking it every single day and not getting it in the form of a month-long shot. But I did have an incident where I had referred a patient to a psychologist, someone with decades of experience in the treatment of alcoholism and addiction. And the first thing that happened when my patient went to him is he said, well, you don’t need this medication anymore. You know, we can handle this with therapy.

Claudia Christian [17:57] Oh, no, that’s not good.

Dr. Mark Leeds [17:59] Yes. I mean, that, you know, and then another incident where a patient’s therapist wanted to talk to me and she wanted him off of his medication. And first thing she said was, I’m a Christian therapist. And, you know, my therapy is based on the And I was thinking, I didn’t think Christianity taught therapy, but, you know.

Claudia Christian [18:19] Yeah, it’s amazing how people twist things for their own program, so to speak. It’s very sad. People in the business of helping others are not open-minded enough to understand that everybody is different. You cannot throw one way at every individual and expect them to respond. It’s a tap dancing routine for therapists because this person has a totally different life than that other person. This person has a support system. That one doesn’t. This one just lost a child. That one lost a job. You can’t deal with everybody in one manner. So it is unfortunate. I’m hoping that people start to be more open-minded and to embrace compassion when it comes to treating addictions.

Dr. Mark Leeds [19:00] Now, have you ever been to Celebrate Recovery?

Claudia Christian [19:03] No, I have not.

Dr. Mark Leeds [19:04] It’s a Christian group, but it’s from what people have told me, it’s more kind of a more easygoing kind of a group, like where it’s not for any one kind of addiction, not even just drugs or alcohol, but even other kinds of addiction like gambling. But it is church based. It’s Christian. So, you know, it might not be right for a lot of people. But and then there’s also Smart Recovery.

Claudia Christian [19:25] Yeah, Smart Recovery and LifeRing, I think. There’s also non-secular. There’s also women’s groups, men’s groups. I mean, there’s so many choices nowadays. There’s also online support. We have a forum. We have Facebook pages. Like I mentioned, the Zoom monthly meetings are now weekly meetings on Wednesday evenings for people on TSM. And it’s free. You can find your people. I always tell everyone, you can find your group that you’re comfortable with. And people have so many more options than they used to. So many more medications are now being used off-label for everything from helping you sleep, withdraw, cravings. It just depends on what you want. That’s why I’m so excited about comprehensive programs for individuals with coaches or therapy and medications individually suited to the person’s needs.

Dr. Mark Leeds [20:12] And I’m sure you’re aware of this. Naloxone is available in almost every state now without a prescription.

Claudia Christian [20:19] Yeah, which should open the door to naltrexone being over the counter. Absolutely.

Dr. Mark Leeds [20:22] Yeah. And apparently, well, naloxone is not fully over the counter, but you can go up to the pharmacist and I guess they prescribe it just like a flu shot. But apparently the FDA is fast tracking it through that they want it to be over the counter.

Claudia Christian [20:35] And it should be and so should naltrexone. It’s going to take a while, but I actually went to Washington, D.C. This year to discuss that with a couple of groups of people who help things get through the FDA and help over the counter. And I’m hoping that will come to fruition with a little bit of lobbying and some time and money put into it. But it would be wonderful if you could just, much like smoking cessation tools, if you could just go to the drugstore and say, you know, I want some naltrexone. I actually went in India when I was teaching there two summers ago. I went to a local pharmacy just to see if I could get it in Dharmashallah. And I did. I said, I would like to have some naltrexone. And he got on his little bike and said, I’ll be back in an hour. And lo and behold, he handed me a packet of naltrexone. So some countries are much further ahead than we are. Spain actually used to have it over the counter. So did Czechoslovakia. Now people are saying it’s getting more difficult to find. I don’t understand these steps backwards. I really don’t. It’s so frustrating being in the nonprofit world and trying to promote something that actually saves lives. I’m not making money off of this, you know, in my nonprofit organization. So I always struggle to understand why people won’t just listen, why doctors won’t open their ears to this lifesaving medication. When we have so much evidence, the past decade that I’ve been working with people, honestly, I think maybe upwards of 85% of the people, it works. And you don’t have that success rate in other methods. You don’t have an 85% long-term success rate. And if somebody, but once again, this takes a certain kind of individual, you cannot force somebody to take medication and to be compliant. And so if you are meeting with a patient, any doctors out there want to use this method for an individual, it has to be somebody who is psychologically able to comply, who can physically tolerate naltrexone, obviously not pregnancy or they can’t be addicted to opiates. And also somebody who absolutely will be compliant. And that means taking the medication and waiting a full hour before one drink. And that means planning. That means mindfulness. That means accountability. And if that person displays that sort of motivation, they should absolutely be offered naltrexone.

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:47] And it would be great to take this out of the hands of doctors. I mean, it’s such a safe thing and people can learn how it works. And, you know, and doctors, I think, are concerned about liability of sending a patient out and saying, OK, take this pill, you know, before you have a drink when they feel like they should be saying, you know, don’t don’t drink at all. You know, just like it’s kind of like the issue with medical marijuana. Like, why are doctors involved with marijuana? If it’s so safe and it helps with so many things, why not do it like Colorado, just make it recreational or freely available? You know, it’s a whole nother subject.

Claudia Christian [23:22] Well, yeah, but then you have the majority of articles and publications talking about marijuana misuse now and marijuana overdoses and marijuana making a true impact on the brain of young people in a negative manner. It’s really, I think anybody who is going to veer towards misuse, substance misuse, if you have accessibility, it’s going to result probably easier accessibility to alcohol or to anything is probably going to eventually filter out those people who have a disposition towards addiction and they’re going to misuse that substance. But, as we all know, anyone who has lived in the world of addiction and experienced addiction, you will do whatever it takes to get your substance of choice. I’ve known people who have benefited enormously from medical marijuana for pain. I also have seen people that use low-dose naltrexone, and it’s changed their lives. They’ve gone from being in a wheelchair to actually walking because it helps with pain that much in microdoses. It’s also used for fibromyalgia, MS, other neurological disorders. And to not make this legal, low-dose naltrexone is not even FDA approved. And to not make medical marijuana legal, of course, it’s absurd. But then, of course, you’re going to get people who abuse marijuana. I’ve seen incidents of people who literally smoke pot all day long. And the strains are so strong nowadays that they’re rendered incapacitated. So is that escapism? Yes. But that’s somebody who’s maybe prone to abuse. It’s a very complicated issue. I don’t think it’s black and white.

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:00] Is there a training program for doctors? I mean, like say that a doctor wants to get started, like the kind of paperwork and agreement, you know, like doctors like to have things on the chart, like legal agreements, you know, like informed consent to let the person know, yes, go have a drink. But if you don’t follow the directions, you know, you’re going to be in trouble and we’re not responsible for that. You know, doctors like to make sure that, and they want to make sure they’re doing things exactly right by the program. I mean, And so a doctor can read the book, A Cure for Alcoholism by Dr. Eskapa, or they can watch One Little Pill. But how can a doctor really become prepared to actually do this in their practice?

Claudia Christian [25:34] We have a whole website, c3foundation.net. So it’s c-t-h-r-e-e-foundation.net. And that website is specifically for doctors to learn about TSM. It has the protocol on there. The research, everything is on that site. We are trying to, one of our dreams, if we get funding or people start donating more, is to launch our training program for doctors. So that’s already in the works, but once again, it’s all a matter of funding. So we do know exactly what doctors need, and we have been planning it’s just a matter of funding.

Dr. Mark Leeds [26:14] Yeah, I’m looking at the site right now, and there is a lot of information here on this page for doctors. Common myths, a doctor saying I’m not permitted to prescribe naltrexone. Well, of course they can. In fact, they should be. Yeah, it’s FDA approved.

Claudia Christian [26:30] Specifically since 1994, it’s been approved for alcohol misuse. So it’s ridiculous. In 2009, when I approached my own GP, he refused me because he immediately thought it was an opiate. He didn’t even look at his little black book. I went to three doctors until finally, and by the way, I’d already been on it for four months and I was paying outlandish prices to buy it from some pharmacy in India. It was like $200 for 30 pills. And I really wanted a prescription. By the fourth doctor I went to, I’ve been refused by all of them. This guy was younger and he had his little book there, his little black medical book, medication book. And he looked it up and he said, okay. And I showed him the packets, the empty packets. I said, look, I’ve been on this. My drinking has reduced to normal. I no longer binge. I drink maybe two, three times a week, maybe one glass of wine. I said, this has saved my life. And he was the only doctor that actually looked into it and gave me a prescription for 15 pills and told me to come back. And I did. I played the game. And 10 years later, he’s now one of the biggest providers of the Sinclair Method in Southern California. And he’s seen the results. He’s seen it save lives. He’s seen people come in and reduce their drinking by half or by three quarters, by 90%. And he said, this is insane that it’s not being used more often. But he took the time to listen to me, to hear me and to look into the medication and see that there’s no possibility of abusing naltrexone. You can’t. So that was a rare doctor indeed. And it’s kind of sad to think that in 10 years, things really haven’t changed that much. I shouldn’t say that because in the six years that C3 Foundation has been open, when I started, there was one doctor in the entire United States that prescribed naltrexone for his patients. And now the whole US is covered almost. So it has changed, but people still don’t know about it. So they don’t know to ask about it. That’s the sad thing. I mean, my TEDx talk has had over 2 million views, but you know, it’s not enough. I got to do another talk. I have to get out there, but I’m just one person shouting from the rooftop. I have one employee and I’ve made one film. It’s really frustrating. It really is frustrating, but I haven’t given up hope and I’m still as motivated and passionate as I’ve ever been. I believe in this because I’ve seen how it profoundly changes people’s lives for the better. I’ve seen how it saves marriages. It saves the next generation, children being affected by their parents drinking. It’s remarkable. And I refuse to give up until this is mainstream and it is the first line of defense. When you go to the doctor, they say, why don’t we put you on Naltrexone in a targeted manner? That is my dream.

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:13] One part of the problem might be just the state of the healthcare system in the US. The doctors are kind of in this assembly line. They have to see a patient in five minutes. Doctors have one of the highest suicide rates of all professions.

Claudia Christian [29:26] Also alcohol misuse rates.

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:28] Yeah, exactly. Yes. I mean, you see a doctor to get alcoholism treated and that’s like an old joke that an alcoholic as a person who drinks more than their doctor.

Claudia Christian [29:36] Yes, exactly. And it’s very hard for them to treat themselves because they don’t want to go public with it, obviously. I deal with pilots, doctors, a lot of lawyers because they need privacy. And Naltrexone provides that, TSM provides complete privacy. They can get the medication and then they can just do it at home.

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:54] That might be like the best hope for something like the Sinclair Method to go out to doctors like that. You know, like doctors who have time to spend with their patients who instead of spending five minutes are spending 30 to 60 minutes with a patient. There’s another thing called direct primary care. Doctors that don’t deal with insurance companies, but they have monthly plans for their patients where they can get as much care as they need, as much access to the doctors they need for them and for their family. Those are the kind of doctors I think that would have the time to actually sit down and pay attention to this and actually have time to talk to their patients.

Claudia Christian [30:25] Absolutely. But in addition to that good idea, doctors who don’t have time have everything they need on C3 Foundation’s website. So they can literally spend five minutes with a patient and say, if you want to try the Sinclair method, visit the C3 Foundation page, download the free drink log, watch the videos, read the book. You know, I send them a free PDF of the book. They can set their patient up in two minutes because we’ve provided all the information a patient needs, including peer support. If you have a limited amount of time, the doctor could say, here’s the naltrexone. You’re supposed to take it daily for cravings as per the FDA recommendation. However, if you’re going to drink, if you know you’re going to drink, make sure you take one an hour before you go to the event. That’s not telling somebody to drink. It’s telling somebody if you think you’re going to relapse or if you think you’re going to be in a dodgy situation or a place where you always drink, it’s like a prophylactic. It’s like making sure you have your condom. You mentioned earlier that doctors are concerned that they’re encouraging people to drink. I think they have to get realistic. Your patient is going to drink. If they’re going to a wedding, do you want them to full-blown relapse and spiral into a binge, or do you want to tell them that there’s a medication they could take that will prohibit them from binging? As a matter of fact, in England, nalmefene was used, and they called it originally on the NHS, the anti-binge drinking pill. And that’s what doctors were calling it, where if you want to not spiral into a binge, take this medication before you go to the pub. So that’s the way it was marketed.

Dr. Mark Leeds [31:52] So for doctors who are worried about the consequences of prescribing naltrexone, they can just write the prescription. If they really only have five minutes with a patient and the patient says, please go look at this website, download the drinking log and read this. Even if they don’t want to do that, they can be assured that most of the time, the main thing is the patient’s not taking opioids at all. Exactly. And yes, yes. Yeah, but put them in withdrawal.

Claudia Christian [32:16] It would put them into immediate withdrawal, even a small amount of naltrexone.

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:19] One interesting thing is that the street drug Kratom, the herbal thing that they say can help people self-treat for opioid addiction, which is kind of a dangerous thing for people to do that. But it’s kind of available in cafes and online. And there’s people who are proponents of Kratom. Naltrexone can cause precipitated withdrawal for someone who’s taking that drug.

Claudia Christian [32:39] Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard as well. So I had somebody with a dual issue. They were using opiates and they were misusing alcohol. And they had told their partner that they were off of the opiates. And the partner slipped them a quarter tablet of a 50 milligram tablet of naltrexone as a sort of test to see if they were still on opiates. And the individual went into full on withdrawal. So that’s nothing to play with. They had to call an ambulance and everything. It’s not funny. It’s quite dangerous. So yeah, so pregnancy, because there have not been enough studies on pregnancy with naltrexone. Of course, the old argument there is if you’re pregnant, you shouldn’t be drinking at all. So if you are physically dependent on alcohol, wouldn’t it be safer to take naltrexone than to drink and ruin your child’s chances of a future? And the other thing is liver damage. And that’s another conundrum because frankly, alcohol most likely has more negative impact on your liver health than naltrexone would. There’s been a lot of talk about over-the-counter pain medication having more detrimental effect on your liver than naltrexone. So I think it’s common sense for a doctor to use on an individual basis, but clearly if somebody is on opiates, yes, I would say clear away from that.

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:55] It is definitely a safe medication, safer than probably most of the things that they’re prescribing. Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely recommend that people visit your website.

Claudia Christian [34:05] The best site for individuals curious about the Sinclair method would be www.c3foundation.org. And for doctors it would be c3foundation.net and if anybody wants to just google my name Claudia Christian and TEDx they can watch the TEDx talk and refer people to that. My film is called One Little Pill. It’s the documentary available on Amazon Prime for free if you’re a member or you can rent it at onelittlepillmovie.com for a few bucks that goes directly back to the Nonprofit Foundation, and you can buy it there as well. So most of the resources you’ll find on the website, c3foundation.org.

Dr. Mark Leeds [34:46] Also, definitely for people who have not seen your show, I started watching it on, I think, Amazon Prime Video, Babylon 5. Oh, yeah. Great show. I’ve always been a big sci-fi fan. It just somehow I just never watched it. So yeah, I mean, that’s

Claudia Christian [35:01] Just… Yeah, very good. Very good writing. That’s about 25 years ago. It was a good experience for me. That was in the mid-90s. And it’s really great writing. Joe Straczynski is a wonderful writer. And it was very interesting for that time period. It was the first series to use CGI instead of models. And also it was one of the few to have a story arc, much like an ongoing epic saga instead of a standalone episode.

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:30] Now all the shows are like that.

Claudia Christian [35:32] Yeah, exactly. It was a little before its time, but very well written. And

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:37] That show was way before you knew about the Sinclair Method, right?

Claudia Christian [35:40] Oh, I didn’t have a problem with alcohol when I was shooting that.

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:44] Oh, that was before even that?

Claudia Christian [35:46] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I started that series when I was 29 and was on that for the next four or five years. And my alcohol misuse really didn’t occur until my very late 30s, probably 38, 39, and into my early 40s.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:00] I was looking at it and I’m like, wow, there’s a character named Sinclair in the show.

Claudia Christian [36:04] Sinclair, I know. I know. Oh, and then in the Disney film Atlantis, I played Helga Sinclair. The name has been following me around. It’s kind of auspicious. It’s funny. But yes, I give thanks to Dr. Sinclair and his research. He devoted the majority of his life to that, which is just amazing what his work and how profound of an effect it’s had on my life and many others’ lives.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:25] So that’s awesome.

Claudia Christian [36:28] Thank you, Dr. Leeds. Thanks for having me on the show.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:30] Thank you for taking the time out to talk to me.

Claudia Christian [36:32] Absolutely. You have a beautiful day. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:34] Oh, you too. Thank you for joining us today on The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful. If so, please subscribe to The Rehab Podcast and share on social media. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to The Rehab. Thank you.